Test series set to be shown on Fox Sports

AUSTRALIA has been saved from a cricketing blackout, with Fox Sports striking an emergency deal to broadcast the game’s long-awaited return from the wilderness.

England’s COVID bubble Test series against the West Indies starts next week and the hastily arranged return to action had left TV chiefs in a race against time to seal a deal to show the action.

However, Fox Sports has come to a temporary agreement with the England Cricket Board, meaning there will be prime-time Test cricket on Australian screens from Wednesday night.

There is ever-growing optimism that Australia will be able to tour the UK for a oneday tour in September, and negotiations are ongoing between Fox and the ECB to get a long-term TV deal in place to ensure that Aaron Finch’s team is shown Down Under.

Uncertainty over when cricket would return from COVID-19 had made it difficult to negotiate a new contract after Fox’s previous deal with the ECB had expired – but officials have scrambled hard to make it happen.

The eyes of the cricketing world will be fixed on not only how the game looks in the coronavirus era in which players are banned from shining the ball with saliva, but also on how polarising England star Ben Stokes fares as a Test captain.

Stokes has made an extraordinary personal recovery from assault charges laid against him over an infamous incident outside a Bristol nightclub in late 2017 that resulted in him being banned from an Ashes tour.